


in the green

by acroamatica



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, and a little bit of angst but not too much, and a lot of tea, hiding in the water grass, imperial radch crossover AU, lurking in the underbrush, my hands are a squid, my heart is a fish, sorry ms leckie, warning for a lot of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 03:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6784069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acroamatica/pseuds/acroamatica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Justice of Var</i> was getting started on the normal shipboard morning routine when the notification came in.</p><p>“General,” Ship said, through One Esk, who was removing a smudge on the toe of Hux’s boot.  “There is an incoming ship.”</p><p>(In which pins hold a lot of meaning, Hux's ship loves her back, and the universe runs entirely on strong black tea.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the green

**Author's Note:**

> For [byzantienne](http://byzantienne.tumblr.com) with much love and deep appreciation. <3 <3 <3
> 
> _my heart is a fish, hiding in the water grass; in the green, in the green_
> 
> _A ship with ancillaries expressed what it felt in a thousand different minute ways. A favourite officer’s tea was never cold. Her food would be prepared in precisely the way she preferred. Her uniform always fit right, always sat right, effortlessly. Small needs or desires would be satisfied very nearly the moment they arose. And most of the time, she would only notice that she was comfortable. Certainly more comfortable than other ships she might have served on._  
>  _Ancillary Mercy - Ann Leckie_

_Justice of Var_ was getting started on the normal shipboard morning routine when the notification came in.

“General,” Ship said, through One Esk, who was removing a smudge on the toe of Hux’s boot. “There is an incoming ship.”

The General sighed, and held out her foot to see that the smudge was gone. She was pleased with the boot, One Esk could see it in her feedback, but not with the news. “Who?”

“It’s definitely Kylo Ren’s ship,” One Esk said. “Whether or not she is on it.” They had not received any advance messages from her that she was coming, but Kylo often did not bother with such courtesies, so the fact that she had not this time meant very little apart from that she was not actively trying to impress Hux.

“Very well.” Hux stood, and another One Esk made their way in with the General’s first cup of tea, in the ship’s pale green tea service.

It was one of the many peculiarities of Hux that made her so distinctive amongst all the Radchaai _Justice of Var_ had ever met - she had a personal tea service, of course she did, but she drank so very much tea and at such an uncommon strength that she had long ago elected not to use the translucently beautiful set in her quarters for every day. At first One Esk had been shocked by her. But there was a method in it; because she needed a fresh, hot cup by her side throughout her unusually long day, she would have had to assign someone in Esk to do nothing but wash cups all day had she not used the sturdy service with hundreds of pieces all the same. And it was entirely possible that, as blackly and as acidly as she took her tea when she was not entertaining and subject to Radchaai standards of acceptability, it might have etched the enamel on the best tea set. Hux disliked fanciness that was counterproductive or served no purpose. 

Ship thought that perhaps that was why Hux had turned down Anaander Mianaai’s offer - the choice of the cushy diplomatic post, or the simpler station-based life, that could have come with her promotion from Fleet Captain to General. Hux had had the _Justice of Var_ since she had been given her Captain’s stripes, had insisted that it was perfectly suitable to a Fleet Captain as well, and then had made a flagship of _Justice of Var_ when she had proposed to Anaander Mianaai that the Radch would be better served were she mobile and able, at a moment’s notice, to take a _Justice_ she knew and trusted to any place where such a thing might be needed to make a point.

Ship was glad of it, however it had come about. Hux had been aboard so long, and shown such consistently good judgement in command and such care for her ship, that her odd Outer Rim ways had been first forgiven, and then eventually cherished; much like her strange, un-Radchaai looks, the white and orange of a fiercely burning ember. It did not matter to _Justice of Var_ what the rest of the Radch thought of their mismatched leader. 

_Justice of Var_ did, however, care rather a lot about the opinions of the citizen who might or might not be aboard the incoming ship, mainly because General Hux did too, no matter how she pretended otherwise.

It had been a bad visit, when Kylo Ren had last come aboard. Ren had been on her way to some sort of assignment, and had brought her own decade of soldiers with her, without warning and without invitation. Hux had awakened the Bo decade that almost belonged to Ren, at this point, so accustomed was Five Bo to serving Kylo Ren each time she came aboard; but the soldiers had been unhappy with the presence of the ancillaries, and there had been nothing but boiling tension between Hux and Kylo until it had overflowed, in a physical dispute that had left Hux bruised, One Esk Fourteen and Seventeen and Five Bo Two in Medical, severe damage to multiple rooms of the ship, and no less than sixteen bowls from the ship’s tea service in fragments.

Hux had shouted herself hoarse at Kylo, driving her back to her ship and away - no more courtesy at that point, not even from the normally flawlessly-mannered General. _Justice of Var_ ’s lieutenants had been both appalled and secretly proud. One did not, not even if one was the Master of the Knights of Ren, damage Hux’s ship in a fit of temper and expect her to let the matter drop lightly.

After that, they hadn’t seen Kylo Ren for nearly half a standard year. Hux had said nothing about it, to anyone, and Captain Phasma had given a harsh enough lecture to the junior Issa lieutenants she had overheard talking about it (and later, to Lieutenant Thanisson too) that after that no-one else had either. One Esk, and all of _Justice of Var_ , had noted that the General was quieter and less willing to make even the driest of jokes. But Ship loved her, and Ship would take care of her, and as the days went by, One Esk’s painstaking perfection in their duties seemed to raise her spirits enough that they felt that their General was back among them.

Phasma’s own Amaats were preparing to welcome the ship - it was not large, hardly more than a shuttle, but the presence of the most senior crew member on the ship apart from the General herself was enough respect shown that Kylo Ren could not be offended. Were she even aboard. The shuttle’s crew, whoever they might have consisted of, had not deigned to clarify.

Hux had informed Phasma that she was far too occupied with the actual running of the ship to be able to spare the time to stand around in the hangar waiting for whoever was aboard to disembark. It wasn’t like her, usually so careful about protocol - it was widely speculated amongst the junior lieutenants that the General used her scrupulous adherence to protocol as a shield against all the people who might have called her less of a citizen based on her origins and that impossible bright hair. She was Radchaai to the bone and she would prove it. No-one had ever seen her without her gloves, or without the tasteful constellation of pins that marked her family connections, her fallen mother, her own strategic allegiances and friendships.

Phasma had known, of course, that there was more afoot than just the new orders that had come in from Anaander Mianaai the day before. But they made an excellent, if convenient, excuse. So it was that Amaat decades One through Three stood in perfect rank, with Phasma standing proudly at their head, and Mitaka’s Etrepa decades Four and Six behind them. Five Bo waited along the side wall, watching calmly as the shuttle’s landing jets settled it onto the hangar deck.

The metal ticked and popped, cooling, and the ramp slid smoothly out as the door opened over it, and Phasma and all 120 ancillaries snapped to attention in perfect unison, eyes on the dark interior of the shuttle from which Kylo Ren would stride, in an arrogant swirl of robes, at any moment - 

_She is injured,_ Ship said, in the ears of One Amaat, Five Bo, Phasma - and One Esk. _And she is alone._

And then Kylo Ren, robes hanging half-shredded and blood-soaked from her broad body, stumbled from the shuttle and fell unconscious into the arms of One Amaat Three.

\----

One Esk Six had been with the General when _Justice of Var_ had given the alert, assisting as the voice of Ship as Hux ran battle simulations, and Ship had spoken over Hux, which in and of itself was uncommon enough.

“General,” One Esk Six had said. “Kylo Ren has arrived, alone and badly injured. One Amaat are taking her to Medical now. Captain Phasma has suggested you attend.”

Hux’s head snapped up, her face blue-white in the light of the holos of the simulation. “Is she - did Kylo Ren _ask_ for me?”

“Kylo Ren is unconscious, General. She did not speak at all when she arrived.”

Hux stared at her holos. Her expression was closed-off and hard: her feedback, distress, but tightly controlled. “Continue simulation. And keep me informed if there is any change in her condition, but I will not attend unless she requests it herself.”

Ship relayed that, quietly, to Captain Phasma, who was supervising most of Five Bo as they moved Kylo Ren’s few belongings from the shuttle to her usual quarters and began checking over the shuttle for damage. It seemed that whatever trouble Kylo had gotten herself into, she had done it on her own; the shuttle was sticky with blood, smeared and puddled on nearly every surface to the point that Phasma found herself wondering how Kylo had had any left in her. 

Five Bo would do their best to restore it to at least a sanitary state; but soon Medical would have replaced the blood Kylo was missing, and hopefully have patched her up to the point where she wouldn’t lose any more, and Five Bo would be needed to attend to her. Phasma decided she would ask Lieutenant Unamo if she could spare Four Inu, whose particular speciality was the interior maintenance of shuttlecraft. This would take an expert touch if it were ever not to smell faintly sour and metallic.

\----

Kylo Ren regained consciousness briefly, later, and Five Bo Seven relayed this to the rest of the decade who had been making the officers’ quarters on Bo Deck presentable. But she did not speak, only looked around the Medical bay, and seeing only Five Bo and the medics, turned her face back into the pillow and feigned sleep.

Five Bo wondered if perhaps she had been expecting someone else.

Ship whispered to One Esk, who indicated that Hux was on her third cup of tea in an hour and didn’t look at all like she wanted to be disturbed. The General’s mood could be gauged extremely accurately by how many cups of tea she was managing to put down and how tarry-black she had them brewed; at present One Esk Eleven, the best of the tea-brewers, was making them strong enough that the shards of leaves clung to the film of oil on the top of the cup. The General was probably not planning to sleep, then.

One Esk Seven was putting away the General’s clean uniforms, as always tucking the black shirts into the drawer and ignoring the small box that had been hidden in there since just after Kylo Ren had last left the _Justice of Var_. Hux had been looking at it, earlier, as she did now and then; but she had not taken it out of the drawer, not before Kylo had made her dramatic arrival. One Esk knew the sound of that drawer slamming shut entirely too well. 

One Esk Eleven set the fresh cup down at General Hux’s elbow just as she drained the last one to the dregs. “Thank you,” the General said absently, and Ship looked through One Esk’s eyes at the set of Hux’s mouth and wished that there was something else they could do.

Kylo Ren, _Justice of Var_ found, was staring silently at the ceiling. The correctives on her wounds were so numerous she looked to have developed a carapace. 

The wounds were excuse enough for her to be miserable, but though Ship didn’t have the same direct visibility of her that it did of Hux, it seemed certain there was something else. Five Bo stepped forward and said gently, “Excuse me, Master Kylo.”

Kylo couldn’t move much, between the correctives and the pain they hadn’t gotten to yet, but her eyes flicked to Five Bo Eight, who was collecting the jumble of shredded cloth that had been her robes. Medic had cut them off her, what hadn’t simply fallen off, and they were stiff with blood and completely unsalvageable.

“These will be unsuitable,” Five Bo said, delicately. “We will take them and bring you other clothes, for when the correctives have finished and Medic allows you to leave.”

Kylo took a shuddery breath, the gasp before a hasty question, and Five Bo said “We will clean your pins.”

Kylo Ren had always been vain about her memorial pins - chief among them the ostentatious black steel and jet conglomeration that she wore pinned front and centre on her breast, with the name _DARTH VADER_ in blocky hand-engraved serif capitals in amongst the inelegant chunks of black stone. It was poor form to call anyone’s memorial jewellery tacky, most especially when the person thus memorialised was the bearer’s most sincerely lamented grandmother. But everyone on the ship knew Hux’s opinion of it. She thought Kylo had probably made it herself, and that her career as a jeweller was going to be… limited.

What Five Bo disliked most about it now, however, was the sheer number of crevices it featured, now filled with crusted blood.

Five Bo Eight and Nine worked over the ruined robes, picking all of Kylo’s pins free of the cloth and displaying each for Kylo to see so that she would know, and be easy in her mind, that none had been missed. 

Then Five Bo whisked them away, to be soaked and scrubbed, and then polished, which would be a full night’s work if they were to be ready when Kylo’s correctives came off.

\----

(In the General’s quarters, she was still working, flicking from screen to screen, and glancing very occasionally at one that showed her Ship’s surveillance feed from the medical bay where Kylo Ren lay, looking directly up at the camera as though she knew.)

(Five Bo worked over a sink of warm water, dislodging dirt from the stones of Kylo’s jewellery with a fine brush. One of Mitaka’s Six Etrepa unit had brought their polishing kit and there was a small working bee in progress in the Bo decade room, trying to bring the damaged and dirty pins back to the glory their wearer thought they had always had.)

(Kylo lay on her side now, her carapace shifting as Medical added and removed correctives, and she was sleeping - not pretending to sleep anymore, one large hand empty and outflung against the sheets, as if waiting for something to hold.)

(Four Inu had the console of Kylo’s shuttle half-disassembled, wiping at the stains until they came away. “Did you hear,” one of the junior lieutenants was saying, from where they hovered at the door of the shuttle, still unable to bear the charnel smell of all the blood, “she _walked_ out of here? Yes, she fell, once the Amaats got to her, but - she _walked_. She bled that much and she was still on her feet.”

“It’s a good thing General Hux is made of steel herself,” opined the other lieutenant. “She’d have to be if she wants to keep up with Kylo Ren.”)

(General Hux leaned her forehead on her hand, and gritted her teeth, her eyes and lips pressed shut against anything that might escape her, for a long, long moment. One Esk kept their back to her, and pretended, as they always did, that they noticed nothing. But they listened, and counted the seconds until she took her next breath, and the next, and the next, until they could be certain the moment had passed.)

(Five Bo watched the awful wounds in Kylo’s side slowly knitting back together, and counted her breaths too. Soon she would be - well enough to explain, well enough to go wherever it was she would go now. She had come here, and that had to mean something. Crawling to the _Justice of Var_ , sure of her reception despite how she’d left; and yet the General was still in her quarters, and Kylo still hadn’t spoken.)

(Phasma and her Amaats slept, and Phasma dreamed of Kylo’s shuttle, with its door opening, so slowly, and a wave of blood cresting over her boots. Kylo floated, serene, on the wave, eyes closed, hands clasped on her breast, into the arms of a hundred Amaats; they carried her. They would always carry her.)

(One Esk Eleven started the preparations for another cup of tea.)

 _Justice of Var_ thought, for a long while, and then made a decision.

\----

The daily prayer was over, a thousand mouths moving in unison around the ship. Five Bo, weary but having slept in shifts, joined Four Issa Three, arms full of uniforms and gloves, and One Esk Eighteen, who was Ship at the moment, and had charge of Ren’s cleaned jewellery.

Kylo Ren, finally free of her carapace, was awake and ignoring the breakfast Five Bo had brought her.

“Finally,” she said, spying Four Issa Three. “They won’t let me leave until I have something to wear, and nobody would bring me my clothes.”

“Your clothes were not repairable, Master Kylo,” Five Bo said. “We have arranged uniforms and gloves in your size, which is regrettably all _Justice of Var_ can supply at this time.”

Four Issa set the clothes on the end of Kylo’s bed and retreated as Five Bo stepped in to help her pull them on. She was healed, but her range of movement was still limited.

She looked down at herself and grimaced. “This seems somehow inappropriate,” she said. “ _Can_ I even wear this uniform? Is it not against some sort of rule?”

“It is not ideal, Master,” Ship agreed. “But it is preferable to you wandering the corridors fully nude.”

Kylo looked closely at Ship, in the body of One Esk Eighteen. “ _Justice of Var_ ,” she said. “I thank you for allowing me on board at all.”

It was one of the things Ship liked about Kylo - she could always tell when someone was Ship, versus when they were not. It made up for the way her presence rippled the Universe, like a stone thrown into a still pond.

“It was not I who permitted you,” Ship said. “It was General Hux.”

Kylo laughed, but it wasn’t really a laugh. “I find that hard to believe. She would hardly have jumped for joy at knowing I still drew breath, however tenuous that state might have seemed at the time.”

“The General is not one to jump, regardless of the situation.” Ship stepped forward, and spread the shining contents of One Esk Eighteen’s hands over Kylo’s blanketed lap. “These may help with making the uniform feel more suitable.”

Kylo’s hands flew to the enormous Darth Vader pin, holding it up to the light to marvel at it. “Five Bo, was this your doing?” she said. “It has never looked better. It does honour to my grandmother.”

“Yes, Master.” Five Bo passed a small flicker of pride amongst themselves.

Kylo pinned it on immediately, slightly crooked but over her heart. Then she looked back down, and her eyes narrowed as she picked out a simple, delicate twist of metal adorned with a graceful cluster of sparkling green oval stones. Tiny letters ran down the side of the bezels.

“This isn’t mine,” she said warily.

“I believe, Master Kylo,” _Justice of Var_ said carefully, “that you will find that it is.”

Kylo Ren looked very, very sharply at One Esk Eighteen.

“I need to speak with the General,” she said. “Now.”

“I will request her presence,” Ship said, and if One Esk Eighteen could have smiled, the game would have been over.

\----

“I didn’t _ask_ for clientage,” Kylo Ren roared, from behind the locked door. One Esk had two segments standing in front of it, and both were steadfastly pretending to all outside observers that they had no functioning ears.

“And I’m not _offering_ it.” Hux was every bit as loud when she wanted to be. “Will you _listen_ to me for once in your _miserable_ life, Kylo Ren - or _read_ what the pin you are really not at all supposed to have actually _says_ before you _shout_ at me?”

There was a silence. A long one.

“Oh.” Ren’s voice, when it came back, was quite different.

“Yes.” Hux sounded like she had her head in her hands. “And once I work out what has possessed my cursed ship to decide that it needed to give this to you, when I had decided after the last time we spoke that you would never see it…”

“Hux…” Ren sounded lost. “You had this. Before.”

“Of course I did,” the General snapped. “And I would have given it to you, but then you insisted you were going off on that fool’s errand that was certain to get you killed, or worse, and you wouldn’t listen to me because you _never_ listen. But you _didn’t need me_ , did you, Kylo Ren. You don’t need anyone.” She sighed, an awful sound. “Give me back the pin, Kylo.”

“Hux, I -” Ren gulped for breath. “You listen to me, General.”

Hux barked out a laugh. “Oh, why not. What can make this situation more ridiculous?”

“Look. I - ran into trouble, out there, and yes, it was more than I thought it would be. And when I knew I was in over my head? When I realised that I could, in fact, _be_ in over my head, so deeply as to have risked losing it altogether?” She swallowed audibly. “I was sure I was dying, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to come but back here. Back to the _Justice of Var_. Back to _you_. Because, as sure as I was that you never wanted to see me again, I knew if anyone could save me, it would be you, and if no-one could, at least… at least you were here.” 

A pause, then.

Ship watched General Hux’s feedback levels, a wildly seismic mess.

“ _Kylo_ ,” Hux said, and then there was the sound of someone moving very quickly over sheets, and the small wet sound of two mouths meeting.

Some minutes later:

“I’m keeping the pin,” Kylo said.

(One Esk Eleven, in the General’s quarters, went to the cupboard where the General kept her best tea service, the nearly priceless jade-green one. There would be something to celebrate.)


End file.
